Friday, 19 February 2016

Great Scott

Here's a little poser...

White, to play his 41st move, has a huge material advantage - queen for bishop and pawn. But he has two problems: (1) his queen is holed up in a corner; (2) his opponent's d-pawn is two squares away from queening and there's no obvious way to stop it. The e7-bishop can't get back to cover the d2-square, while the white K can't get there in time either, e.g. 1.Kf2 d2 and the K can't go to e2 because the c4-bishop covers e2.

So what to do? It turns out that White had actually gone into this position with his eyes open. In the following position...

... he had played 39.Re7+ Qxe7 40.Bxe7 d3. And, from the first diagram, he now found the killer move...

41.Bf8! and Black resigned. If 41...Kxf8 42.Qxg6 d2 43.Qc2 Bh6 44.Kf2! (Without this precise move Black might still escape) when White will play g3 and f4 and then capture the d2-pawn after which IAMOT (you can work out this abbreviated cliché from the context).

Here's the full game score. White was RHV Scott and he won the game in the penultimate round of the 1920 British Championship in Edinburgh. His opponent was JH Blake. The following day Scott went on to win his final round game against EG Sergeant to clinch the British Championship title. I am grateful to Gerard Killoran for discovering the final position and move, after which I tracked down the full game score in the Yorkshire Post for 23 August 1920.

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